Well, now it’s official—what we’ve always known: narcissists are more likely to become leaders (witness DT) and they are also more likely to be bad leaders (again, witness DT).

Ask most workers if they’ve ever had a narcissist for a boss and you’ll hear stories of leaders who have taken credit for others’ work, made decisions without consulting others and used every opportunity to talk about themselves.… [read more]

Many of us, especially in the professions, are trapped in a 24-hour work day thanks to our attachment to smartphones and the like. Research is beginning to show that this isn’t such a smart idea.

What the researchers say: Many researchers are urging employers to do more to ensure employees do not feel pressured into working outside of their contractual hours and offer more support regarding how they work flexibly, a new study in the International Journal of Management Reviews reports.… [read more]

Numerous studies have shown that the best cure for depression, anxiety, and ADHD is exposure to nature—the very thing we are destroying as fast as we can. We need to pay more attention to the health of the planet to save lives and improve global mental and physical health, now and in the future, Dr Samuel Myers said at The Academy of Medical Sciences & The Lancet International Health Lecture1 last week an accompanying article in The Lancet is here).… [read more]

Neuroscientists find that increasing chronic workplace stress skews decisions toward higher-risk options. Making decisions is not always easy, especially when choosing between two options that have both positive and negative elements, such as deciding between a job with a high salary but long hours, and a lower-paying job that allows for more leisure time.… [read more]

A new study is the first to point to brain changes that underlie poor health in some children who have suffered adversity. Increasing adverse experiences in childhood—such as gun violence, absent parents (both at work) news reports (e.g. the 9/11 bombing), violent games and TV, the death of a parent, growing up in poverty, physical or sexual abuse, or having a parent with a psychiatric illness(such as depression)—have been associated with physical and mental health problems later in life.… [read more]

Companies with high levels of staff satisfaction perform better financially, according to new research. The study examined the effect of staff satisfaction on corporate performance and stock price using employees’ online reviews of where they work.

Writing in the journal Economic Letters, the researchers say that firms rated highly by their current employees in terms of satisfaction achieve greater financial performance compared to firms characterized by low levels of employee satisfaction.… [read more]

Should employers be held liable? Doctors have warned us for years about the health risks associated with sitting too much. Researchers have linked sitting for long periods of time to a number of health issues, including increased high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat and cholesterol.… [read more]

New research on the biological basis of psychiatric disorders has important implications for legal proceedings as well as mental health treatment, according to a special issue on “Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and the Law,” published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

The special issue seeks “to educate and inform mental health researchers and clinicians about the increasing use of their work in judicial contexts and to prepare them for the ethical and practical issues that will arise when their work enters the legal arena,” write the editors.… [read more]

People attribute more humanlike qualities to those expressing opinions they disagree with when the opinions are spoken as opposed to written, according to new research in the journal Psychological Science. The findings explore how specific aspects of speech, such as intonation and frequent pauses, may serve as cues that humanize the people who are speaking, making them seem more intellectual and emotionally warm than those whose opinions are written.… [read more]